Art: Greetings from the Mirage

ARTIST CREATES “GREETINGS FROM THE MIRAGE”, A FLAMBOYANT DESERT LANDSCAPE VISITORS CAN WALK THROUGH AT THE PHILADELPHIA NAVY YARD

About

Greetings From The Mirage was located in the grassy field found at 11th Street and Kitty Hawk Avenue at the Navy Yard. Greetings From The Mirage featured an artist’s vision of a desert landscape made with over a dozen larger-than-life-sized cacti created from colorful and soft textiles, which all sit inside a 20’ x 36’ dome. Following 11 months of planning and creation and an eight-day installation period, the exhibit was open to the public through June 18, 2023.

Working in the realm of sculpture, Matty Geez’s pieces are three dimensional but maintain a kinship to two-dimensional works. His sculptures verge on the edge of fantastic, flamboyant and oversaturated, while holding onto familiar botanical shapes. Juxtaposition of hard and soft along with the use of color explores gender identities and breaking the binary that exists in our current world.

This was the sixth collaborative public art partnership between Group X, a group of Philadelphia-based artists, curators, and organizers whose members are anonymous, and the Navy Yard, the “coolest shipyard in America” and leading model for repurposed military base where 15,000 employees work at 150 companies, surrounded by iconic parks, Complete Streets, and a riverfront greenway.

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